Reborn with a Space: Hoarding Food and Raising My Kid

Chapter 345: Chapter 323: Emergency Meeting

The smell of blood spread through the spacious yet sealed isolation chamber. Panic gripped everyone’s heart. ’What’s happening? Why did a blood-soaked baby just fly out of a sleeping bag?’

"Ah!" A shrill scream erupted from a woman’s mouth.

Immediately after, the lights on the ceiling began to flash, accompanied by a piercing alarm. The flashing red lights seemed to roar mercilessly at the pregnant women in the isolation ward.

Chaos erupted on the second floor. The heavily pregnant women had already been starving for at least a day—only Flora Bloom was a new arrival. They screamed, scrambling away from the woman at the far end of the room whose body was being devoured by a zombie baby. Soon, they began running for the first floor.

At the landing between the first and second floors stood a large, open iron gate. A rusty, old-fashioned brass lock was attached to it. Thinking fast, one of the pregnant women slammed the iron gate between the two floors shut. Then, with a CLICK, she snapped the brass lock closed.

The women on the second floor were all pregnant and slow-moving. Not only did they fail to rush out before the iron gate closed, but their frantic, exaggerated movements also attracted the attention of the zombie baby that was still gnawing on the dead woman’s corpse.

"Kekeke."

The zombie baby let out a strange cry and flew toward the fleeing pregnant women, bits of torn, fresh flesh still clinging to the corners of its mouth.

"Let us down! Hurry, let us down!"

"It’s coming! It’s coming! Open the gate! Hurry!"

A large group of pregnant women crowded the iron gate, reaching out and clawing at the woman who had locked them in.

The woman who had locked the gate kept backing away in fear, terrified that if they grabbed her and pulled her too close to the gate, the zombie baby would get her.

Even the slightest scratch would mean certain infection. She clutched her belly, slumped to the floor, and began to sob loudly. Her wails were infectious, and several other pregnant women joined in.

...

Meanwhile, in the monitoring room, several guards were in a panic. They quickly sounded the high-alert alarm, which brought over the heads of the five great families.

After seeing what was happening in the pregnant women’s isolation ward, the leaders were horrified. They were about to implement a plan to exterminate everyone in the entire area when one of the Thorne family members stopped them.

"Are you crazy? Don’t you see who that pregnant woman is? That’s Rianne Thorne, Keaton Thorne’s eldest daughter! If you dare kill her, I guarantee the Thorne family will never let you get away with it!"

"And there’s someone from the Todd family in there, too. This is going to be complicated!"

"Dammit, isn’t that the Grant family’s mistress? Why is she here of all places? This is a real mess now. If they all die, we’re finished!"

"So what do we do?"

"I suggest we call an emergency meeting of the five great families to discuss how to handle the situation in the pregnant women’s isolation ward." After speaking, the representative sent by the Adler family immediately left to contact his people.

Seeing this, the other four quickly departed as well. In a situation like this, whoever acted fastest could buy more time to develop a plan and seize the initiative.

Half an hour later, the heads of the five great families arrived at a conference hall inside the police precinct building near the base’s main gate, all at nearly the same time.

Liam Todd of the Todd family, Titan Adler of the Adler family, Hector Grant of the Grant family, Keaton Thorne of the Thorne family, and Simon of the Wallace family, each accompanied by two superpower users, launched into a heated discussion in the conference hall.

The moment Hector Grant heard there was trouble in the pregnant women’s isolation ward, he rushed over with two Second-level Plant Element superpower users. The Grant family was in charge of medical affairs at the base. Perhaps due to their family’s tradition of medicine, most of the Grants awakened the life-giving Plant Element, but usually at low levels.

Logically, since Cynthia Grant was back, Hector Grant absolutely should have brought her, a Middle-level Plant Element user, to this meeting. However, his mistress was in that isolation ward. He was afraid that if Cynthia found out, she would resent him even more and actively work against him, so he only brought two Second-level Superpower Users with him instead.

The Todd family was in charge of resources, and most of their family members awakened the Water Ability. Spurred on by Flora Bloom, Chelsea Todd had focused on nothing but leveling up since returning to Argent, determined to surpass her rival. As a result, she had recently broken through to the Middle Level, becoming the Todd family’s second Middle-level Water Ability User. This time, to bolster his daughter’s prestige, Liam Todd brought both Chelsea and a Level 3 Water Ability User.

Simon of the Wallace family brought a Middle-level Earth Ability User and a Level 3 Metal Element user. The Thorne family brought Regan Thorne, a Middle-level Level 3 Fire Element user, and a Second-level Wind Element user.

Titan Adler brought two Middle-level superpower users, one Wind and one Fire Element. Both of them, like Regan Thorne, were Middle-level Level 3, just one step away from breaking through to a High-level Superpower. The Adler family was, by far, the most powerful force present.

The group sat around the conference table, watching the surveillance footage on the projector screen in front of them.

The footage showed the two-story pregnant women’s isolation ward. The iron gate at the landing between the floors was now closed. The second floor was lined with iron-barred windows with glass panes. These might have been able to block an adult zombie, but the new zombies were infants from the wombs of pregnant women. Their tiny bodies only needed to break through the glass to reach the first floor below.

All the pregnant women on the second floor had been lost. The infant zombies were now feasting on the corpses on the floor.

Some of the women who had been fed upon lay on the ground for only a short while before rising to their feet like the walking dead.

Not only that, but their swollen bellies began to contract spasmodically. Amniotic fluid mixed with blood pooled on the floor beneath them, yet they stood there mindlessly at the barred windows, staring down at the scene below.

Down below, the remaining pregnant women were inching their way back toward the entrance they had come from, huddling tightly against the stone doorway.

Among all these women, only one, seeing the others crowding together, wore a grim expression. Frowning, she pushed her way toward a less crowded area. She clutched her stomach as she moved toward an empty space at the side.

’These idiots,’ she thought. ’Don’t they know that the more people gather, the more likely they are to attract the attention of the infant zombies? The concentration of living beings just stimulates their hunger for flesh and blood.’

A chill ran down the spines of the people watching the video feed. The expressions of the Grant, Thorne, and Todd family heads, in particular, changed drastically.

Three of the women trapped inside were connected to them. One was Hector Grant’s mistress. She had somehow survived the apocalypse and even managed to find him. The woman who had been carrying his child before the apocalypse had tenaciously survived; to Hector Grant, finding her again was like recovering a lost treasure, making her incredibly precious.

Another was Keaton Thorne’s eldest daughter, Rianne Thorne. After the apocalypse, she had struggled to follow her father to the newly established base. She originally thought that with her father’s influence, she, unlike others, wouldn’t have to go into the pregnant women’s isolation ward. Who would have thought that someone would report the Thorne family for undermining the base’s safety and harmony by secretly harboring a woman who hadn’t gone through quarantine? And so, the great miss of the Thorne family had been sent to isolation.

The pregnant woman from the Todd family was not a direct descendant, but she was a relative from Liam Todd’s wife’s side of the family. Liam Todd doted on his wife and trusted her completely, so he also placed great importance on this woman.

The head of the Adler family, who had no family members involved, suddenly gave a cold sneer and offered his opinion.

"The pregnant women’s isolation ward has always been a high-priority area for our base. If something goes wrong, it won’t just involve the people in the base; it could very well involve our next generation. From what I can see, those iron-barred windows on the second floor won’t hold for long. I believe it’s best to execute the first protocol: kill everyone inside. Once the zombie virus spreads, I’m afraid the people in the base will face another wave of panic."